Over a decade after his 2006 hit "For You I Will (Confidence)," Teddy Geiger is still making music. For the past few years, he's been working with Shawn Mendes and songwriter Scott Harris, crafting chart-topping songs like "Stitches," "Mercy," "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back," and the VMA-nominated "Treat You Better."

"There's this thing that I think that we really connect on that level, where they both kind of really understood what it was like to be the singer and be the performer," Mendes told MTV News correspondent Gaby Wilson last week, ahead of his VMA performance Sunday (August 27). Harris actually opened up for Geiger "back in the day," Mendes said.

"[They] understand that the music we're writing," Mendes continued, "You have to love it, otherwise you're just going to go nuts performing it on TV and over and over again, you know, promoting it. I really truly believe that if you write a song that is great, but you don't love it, and you go and perform it, and you write a song that's half as good but you love it, the reaction from the people will be the same."

Mendes must have great taste, because fans love his songs just as much as he does. Both Illuminate and Handwritten hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and he rocked his performance at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Clearly, there's nothing holding him back.

The 2017 VMAs have touched down at the Forum in Inglewood, California, airing live on MTV. See the full list of winners and keep up with all of the night's biggest VMA moments!